Women in Art 278 Magazine April 2016 | Page 38

german artist michelle hold abstract gestural painting My Work is an exploration of the abstract, like dance gestures and the vibrations of color. Light, movement, nature and new spirituality with scientific grounding are essential to my work and I am fascinated by the insight into the emerging concepts of science and new thoughts about our existence which start to create a different sense of awareness. My best work seems to come out when I succeed to stay in a place of ‘no-time, nospace, no-body’ helped by yoga and meditation. My themes are nature bound like my cycle on water, silence, light, earth. Since color is light, it is my first choice when I start my painting to connect instantly with the viewer. My knowledge about color comes from my experience in textile design and the world of fashion, knowing that a small alteration of color tone can change the whole mood of a collection. My approach to painting is very energetic, a sort of dance, an impulse, an expression of joy and while painting I forget everything around me. I believe that this is ultimately the energy you read in a painting, the force or, on the contrary, the softness of the brushstroke that captures the viewers attention. My background of studying architecture made me also a constructor. Layer by layer the painting grows, refining what you can barely see, accentuating, canceling, for in the end, I want the viewer to feel intrigued by what they see without necessarily understanding it. I like the element of mystery, because that’s what life is, mysterious. So I play a lot with transparency. I have a fascination for things I do not completely apprehend, which are disguises. And that’s exactly why I paint abstract. Like Gorky said, “Abstraction allows men to see with his mind what he cannot physically see with his eyes.” I like to pull the viewer into the canvas, to re-interrupt his daily routine, to lead him to see the beauty of this world and transmit energy and well being through color and gesture. In my work I am filtering what interests me, so the paintings become a reflection of reality, my thoughts and hopes distilled through my experiences in life, into abstraction. wom en ART page 38